Embraer has since issued options for 205 more of the planes.
For example, if a company issued options today that were good for 10 years, they might vest in equal amounts over the next four years.
Calculations by Pearl Meyer & Partners, a consulting firm, showed that 200 large companies issued options equal to 1.2percentt of shares outstanding in 1994.
After that effort failed, companies issued options at a rapid pace during the stock market boom as a reward to valued employees.
One innovation already announced by I.B.M. would mean its newly issued options given to executives will be valuable only if the company's stock has risen at least 10percentt over the life of the option.
So the telecommunications companies issued options giving the holder the right to sell, and the issuer the obligation to buy, shares at a future date, often at a fixed price.
Yahoo, he says, issued options worth more than the company's annual revenue.
Now add in the "Aggregate Strike Price Amount" where they take care of all the issued options, many of which are significantly in the money.
Umesh Gala, a founding director of Paradigm ESOP Consultants, an adviser on option plans, in Mumbai, India, estimates that 250 companies of India's more than 6,000 listed companies have issued options.
Normally, companies can issue options without reporting an expense.
In 2007, the company stopped issuing options and switched to restricted stock units.
